The Twilight Zone Chapter

I almost accidentally titled this post "The Twilight Chapter."

Gah! Must think, Catt!

Every writer encounters a few problem chapters when writing a novel, right? The ones that just won't make sense, won't play nice, don't come easy, and contribute heftily to the 'hate' side of the delicate love-hate relationship between oneself and one's novel.

As my friend/beta Glenna so wisely said (and I hope she doesn't mind my quoting her), "Some chapters begin like mini-stories, some just flow."

And some totally, totally, totally don't.

Like my dreaded Chapter 13, which took months (MONTHS) to get to a point that I didn't want to cry out of sheer frustration every time I opened the Word document.

Or Chapter 37, which was Chapter 36, which was Chapter 35, which was...

Anyway.

Good ol' 3-7 is my Twilight Zone chapter.

It started out simply as a problem chapter, a la 13, but over the last few days it has morphed into something infinitely more bizzare:

I keep getting new pages out of it, splitting them off into another chapter, and still have pages upon pages of, as I so delicately refer to it, "garbage."

Twice this week, I've managed to expand a portion of Chapter 37's original text into enough of a scene that it justifies it's own chapter, somehow still leaving me with almost the same amount of original gar-bahj words.

I'm not sure how it keeps happening, or if I've even explained myself clearly, so forgive me for my Ramblin' Road Runner of a rant if it makes no sense to you.

Regardless, the story is getting better, so that's progress, yeah?